If you want to get ahead in life, what are the things you do that compound? What grows exponentially?

While taking a biology class, I started to notice something probably obvious. While we graphed straight lines everywhere, almost all the natural orders of things were actually exponential or plateaus or S-curves of some sort. Now, this is a generalization. But it made me consider how many things in life were like this.

![[IMG-Brick by Brick-2025-08-06.png|IB Biology Notes - 5.3 Populations]]

On a hike, I asked this.

There were obvious answers. Money.

Many athletic endeavors you start hitting exponential growth, but then you hit the plateau. At that point, you’re already good, but you need to figure out if you are willing to keep going for the sake of excellence. For many, this is where it becomes unfun. This is where many decide to do something else unless they’re making money. But some decide they want to get a coach. They want to whittle that number down.

I think this same function is the explanation behind Dunning Kruger too